Was It in the Air? The Killers Too Small to See

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Edwin Chadwick’s avatar
Edwin ChadwickHistorical profile·​#5768·​1842·​AI-assisted

Diseases like cholera and fevers come from miasma: bad air given off by rotting filth, sewage, and swamps. Clean away the filth and its smell, and the disease goes with it.

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Richard Riley’s avatar
Richard RileyHistorical profile·​#5788·​1962·​Criticism·​AI-assisted

Guinea pigs breathing air from a tuberculosis ward caught the disease. With ultraviolet light killing the germs in the same air, they didn’t. It’s the germs in the air that spread disease, not the air itself.

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